Lashkari Raisani switches loyalty from PML-N to BNP

In a blow to the PML-N, Nawabzada Lashkari Raisani — former senator and the ruling party’s leader from Balochistan — joined the Balochistan National Party (BNP) on Sunday evening.

Along with Raisani, a large number of other political workers also parted ways with PML-N and joined the BNP.

“Balochistan has always been ignored and deprived [of its due rights] by rulers,” Raisani told the supporters gathered on Sariab Road. He vowed to continue his political struggle for the “acquisition of usurped rights of people of Balochistan”.

“Balochistan has been turned into a heap of explosives,” said veteran Baloch nationalist leader Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the chief of BNP, while addressing the gathering.

People belonging to all areas and ethnic groups have suffered the loss of human lives during the unrest in the province, Mengal said.

Sardar Akhtar Mengal said that previously, Balochistan’s society had been a tolerant and progressive one. Religious fanaticism and sectarianism were a new phenomenon, he added, condemning the recent attack at a church in Quetta and killings of ethnic Hazaras.

He lashed out at the government for what he called its continued failure to provide drinking water to the residents of Gwadar. People of Gwadar are still awaiting on drinking water and you speak about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), he said while addressing the leadership of PML-N.

Lashkari Raisani is the younger brother of former Balochistan chief minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani. He had resigned from the post of PPP Balochistan president in April 2012 and joined PML-N in March 2013. He has previously served as a provincial minister in the Balochistan cabinet as well as a senator during the PPP-led government in the center.